Cry Me A River
by siriuslyholly
Summary: It's been two years since Sherlock's suicide, and John receives an unexpected phone call. Johnlock songfic that isn't really a songfic, but includes some cheesy use of Justin Timberlake's song 'Cry Me A River'.


Disclaimer: I make no money from this. All characters belong to the BBC.

Note: This is un-beta'd, so all mistakes are mine. Please tell me if there is something I need to change!

* * *

_**You were my sun**_  
_**You were my earth**_  
_**But you didn't know all the ways I loved you, no**_  
_**So you took a chance**_  
_**And made other plans**_  
_**But I bet you didn't think that they would come crashing down, no**_

_**You don't have to say, what you did,**_  
_**I already know, I found out from him**_  
_**Now there's just no chance, for you and me, there'll never be**_  
_**And don't it make you sad about it**_

_**You told me you loved me**_  
_**Why did you leave me, all alone**_  
_**Now you tell me you need me**_  
_**When you call me, on the phone**_  
_**I refuse, you must have me confused**_  
_**With some other guy**_  
_**Your bridges were burned, and now it's your turn**_  
_**To cry, cry me a river**_  
_**Cry me a river**_  
_**Cry me a river**_  
_**Cry me a river**_

_**I know that they say**_  
_**That some things are better left unsaid**_  
_**It wasn't like you only talked to him and you know it**_  
_**All of these things people told me**_  
_**Keep messing with my head**_  
_**You should've picked honesty**_  
_**Then you may not have blown it**_

* * *

The phone rings. John doesn't answer it; he hardly ever does. John has tried turning it off, but it always manages to turn back on. The battery never dies, either. It has been ringing every month for two years. John usually makes himself busy by spontaneously visiting the supermarket or taking a shower. Both he and the person calling him know that he does this on purpose.

The phone rings again. John looks at it in surprise. The ringtone echoes in his almost-empty flat, bouncing off the walls and hitting his eardrums with considerable projection. It has never rung twice before. The noise stops, and John gets up from his seat to check the caller ID. Unknown number. But it isn't really unknown; John knows who is calling him: the only man who ever calls him on that particular phone.

The phone rings for a third time. John decides to answer it.

"Hello?" he asks tentatively as he presses the green answer button.

"Doctor Watson. How are you doing?" the caller asks politely.

John ignores the question. "You never try again if I don't answer the first time," he says accusingly, a hint of worry present in his voice.

"John, I have some news. If you would like to step outside –"

"I am not getting in your car, Mycroft," John cuts in. He starts to feel a panic attack rising up from the pit of his stomach, making its way up to constrict his lungs and make his heart pound.

"It's not something one would usually want to hear over the phone," Mycroft says with a sigh.

"I don't care," John says simply. "What is it that's so bloody important? Usually you just ask me about my health, and what I've been up to recently."

"John, it's about Sherlock."

John's breath hitches in his throat.

"_Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?"_

"_Do what?"_

"_This phone call… it's, er… it's my note. It's what people do; don't they… leave a note?"_

"_Leave a note when?"_

"_Goodbye, John."_

John shakes himself and realises he's been silent for about a minute.

"John?"

"What about – what about him?" he asks eventually, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.

"I – we – haven't been entirely truthful with you."

"Why am I not surprised?" John mutters. "Look, I do check my bank balance from time to time, I do see the donations you make in Sherlock's name, I'm not stupid, you know."

"I know you're not stupid, Doctor Watson. I never said anything of the sort," Mycroft says kindly. "In fact, you may consider this good tiding."

John snorts. "Good tiding?"

"Indeed. What would you say if I were to tell you that, in protection of the British government and under a new identity, is the very much alive Sherlock Holmes?"

John's heart stops for a few beats. "I would like to say that you're completely delusional and that Sherlock has been dead for two years. Don't joke with me, Mycroft, it doesn't suit you."

"I can assure you –" A phone rings in the background. "Hang on a few moments, John. I just need to take a quick call from my dear brother."

John sits on his bed, his mind swarming dangerously with all sorts of thoughts. Sherlock is dead. He has been for two years, one month, thirteen days and four hours. He isn't coming back. Has someone who happens to sound like Mycroft Holmes stolen his phone and called him for a laugh. God knows he needs a laugh. But this isn't funny. Back when the wounds were still fresh, when John still held some hope to the notion that Sherlock had somehow tricked them all, he would see him wherever he went. He'd be sitting in the coffee shop at the table behind him, he'd be peering out from behind a rack of clothing at the shop, and he'd be walking past 221b as John passed it in a cab. If Mycroft had called then, and told him Sherlock was in fact alive, John probably wouldn't have questioned it. _Maybe he's finally going barmy_, John thinks.

Mycroft finishes his muffled conversation – it sounded like he was saying "have patience" or something similar – and returns his attention to John.

"Are you feeling all right, Mycroft?" John asks before he can say anything.

"Sorry?" Mycroft responds.

"Have you… bumped your head recently?"

Mycroft sighs again. "No, John, I haven't bumped my head. I'm not going mad. I know it's a lot to take in, but he really is alive. He faked his death. It's not him who's buried under his gravestone. I'm sorry. Sherlock thought you might have been able to work it out before now, actually."

"Stop it," John says quickly. "Stop saying these things. Sherlock is DEAD!" He shouts the last word and quickly tries to calm himself.

"John, I know that you're confused and –"

"Of course I'm bloody confused! Suddenly, out of nowhere, Sherlock's brother is telling me that Sherlock is alive! I saw him fall, Mycroft. No one could have survived that." John is pacing his flat now, his free hand curled into a tight fist. He has only just finished his therapy programme; was Mycroft trying to push him over the edge again?

"Did you?" Mycroft asks after a pause.

"What do you mean, 'did you'?" John hisses. "Of course I did! I was there! I watched him fall!"

"Think back, John. Did you really see him fall?"

John casts his mind back, ready to prove Mycroft wrong for once, but he stops. Did he? He certainly saw Sherlock jump – or fall – from the building, that image was particularly clear, but the next image he has is of Sherlock lying on the concrete, blood pooling under his head and matting his hair. What had happened between those images? John grits his teeth. No. how could he have done that? No. There isn't any logical explanation, except he fell; he died. Mycroft is wrong.

"You're wrong, Mycroft. Stop calling me," John says; ready to hang up the phone.

"Wait, John, don't you want to know how he survived?" Mycroft asks quickly.

"Fine. If it settles your mind, tell me."

"He used a fake body. Molly Hooper, from St. Bart's, provided one that looked remarkably similar. You were concussed from the bicycle incident, you wouldn't have realised. She simply covered it with blood and dressed it as Sherlock was. When you were being knocked over, Sherlock landed safely in the rubbish lorry, which promptly drove away. It was planted by me, of course. The fake body was then put on the ground. The doctors and nurses that immediately surrounded him were also planted." Mycroft exhaled slowly. "I gave him a new life; a new identity. It was the least I could do. However, he chose to stay in London, under the pseudonym 'Jack Sparrow'. I told you he wanted to be a pirate."

John sits down on the chair that he was sat on before the phone call. "Mycroft, if this is some kind of sick joke…"

"Doctor Watson, I think you know me well enough to conclude that I never make jokes."

John groans and clutches his pounding head with his spare hand. "This just… he wouldn't have… why wouldn't he tell me?" He hears Mycroft shift awkwardly on the other end of the phone.

"It was for your protection. He did it because he cared –"

"No," John interrupts. "No, don't say he _cared_ about me, he never _cared _about anything!"

"_John, look at me."_

_They were standing inches away from each other now, close enough for John to feel Sherlock's breath ruffling his greying hair._

"_I'm sorry," Sherlock says, gently placing his hand on John's arm. "I didn't think."_

"_No, no you didn't. For someone who spends every moment of the day thinking about everything there is to think about, you can be really thoughtless sometimes," John replies, wriggling out of Sherlock's touch. _

_Sherlock sighs and looks sadly at the man in front of him. "I'm sorry, John. I care about you; I didn't mean to hurt you."_

"I am going to hang up now, Doctor Watson. You are going to be receiving another phone call in a few moments. I need you to answer it. All will be explained, I promise, if only you answer that call."

"Don't count on it," John growls, hanging up the phone first.

He closes his eyes as tightly as he can and pushes his hands into the soft pillowed seat of the chair. He is just moving on with his life, and then something has to ruin it. He can't believe Sherlock is alive. There is just no possibility that he was. Biting the inside of his cheeks, he starts to cry.

A few minutes later, once his eyes have dried, John stands up and walks as far away from his phone as possible in his tiny flat. He is dreading the call that was sure to follow. Who would it be? He doesn't let the possibility of it being Sherlock enter his mind, attempting to keep that thought locked behind a door, as his therapist had suggested. It isn't long until John's brain denies his protests and allows all sorts of thoughts about Sherlock flood in all at once.

"Oh, Sherlock," John sighs. "You didn't know all the ways I loved you."

"_You're – you're bloody brilliant, Sherlock."_

"_Yes, John, you've told me that on numerous occasions after a deduction," Sherlock replies monotonously._

"_No, just in general. You're brilliant," John says, feeling his cheeks tinge._

"_You're blushing, John," Sherlock notes curiously._

"_Yeah, well, there you go, you can deduce that," John replies, walking as quickly as he can out of the room._

_Sherlock smiles._

After the longest period of silence John has ever had to endure, the phone rings again. John decides to answer it, changes his mind, changes it back again, changes his mind again, and then decides to answer the phone.

"Hello?" he says, his voice barely a whisper.

"John."

John's head feels like it is exploding. He drops the phone on the floor, where it bounces twice but doesn't break. That voice. So distinctive, yet… it can't be. It just can't be. He hasn't heard it for two years, yet here it is; on the other end of a phone as if no time had passed at all.

John has never been able to deal with his emotions properly, hence the years of therapy. This time, however, he just feels angry. Angry at Sherlock for being dead. Angry at Sherlock for being alive. Angry at Sherlock for making him suffer, when he was in London the entire time. Angry at himself for thinking Sherlock had – no. Sherlock had no feelings. He was a robot. A clever robot.

John picks the phone up off of the floor and raises it to his ear. "You fucking –"

"John, please listen."

"No, Sherlock, you listen to me. You don't have to say what you did. I found out from _him_," John spits. "And I don't care why you did it either; I know it was for your own selfish reasons, as always…"

"John, I did this for you."

"Don't you – don't you dare tell me that it was for me, Sherlock! My life was nothing, _nothing_, without you. You don't understand what you did," John says, his voice breaking.

"Please, John. I need you," Sherlock pleads.

John clenches his teeth together. "You told me you loved me, Sherlock. If you loved me, why did you leave me so alone? And now you tell me you need me. You must think I'm so _stupid_. Your bridges were burned, Sherlock. It's your turn to cry."

"John, he was going to kill you if I didn't jump off that building. You had to believe that I died!" Sherlock says. "I didn't think you would react this way."

"You didn't think I would _react this way_?" John explodes. "How the fuck did you think I was going to react?"

"I don't know. Please, John. You have to believe me, all of this; it was for your safety."

"Why did it take you two years? Two bloody years, Sherlock!"

"I had to wait until the assassins were out of the country. Plus, you were still in therapy, you needed to heal before I came in and messed everything up again."

"Too right you've messed everything up. You should have picked honesty, Sherlock. Then you might not have blown it. There will never be a chance for you and me again." John hangs up the phone and puts his head in his hands.

"_Do you want some tea, Sherlock?" John asks on a Sunday afternoon. Sherlock is sitting – perching – on the armchair, focusing on something that looks extremely important, judging by his expression._

"_No," he replies, frowning. "John, please come here."_

_John sighs, puts the kettle back down and walks into the living room. "What is it?"_

"_You know that we're… friends?" Sherlock asks quietly._

"_Yes," John says with a small smile. _

"_I have something to tell you."_

_John shifts his weight and folds his arms. "Okay then, tell me."_

"_I don't think I can," Sherlock says, grappling his hair in annoyance. _

"_Well, show me then."_

_Sherlock stops tugging his hair and looks up in surprise. "That's a good idea, John, well done!"_

"_Well, it's been known to happen."_

_Sherlock stands and walks quickly to where John is stood, by the entrance to the kitchen. He takes his face in his hands and kisses him softly on the lips, lingers for a few seconds, takes a step back and stares at him intently. _

"_Do you understand?" Sherlock asks._

"_I, um, I –"_

"_John?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_I need you."_

The next day, John doesn't turn up for work. Sarah doesn't bother asking why. She is used to his sudden absences. Instead, he sits in his flat – he can't call it home, as his home was in Baker Street, not in a grotty block of flats – and alternates between hitting things to crying in short intermittent bursts. He feels like a teenage girl.

John doesn't sleep for the next three nights. He walks around the flat like a zombie, refusing to leave even when he runs out of teabags. He convinces himself that the conversations with Mycroft and Sherlock – who was most definitely dead – were in his imagination and wonders if he should check himself into the psychiatric ward at the hospital. He decides against it, as he has heard that the food is awful there.

On the fifth day, John admits to himself that he needs to hear Sherlock's voice again, but with no contact number, it is impossible. He takes a shower, has some toast, and goes to Tesco express for some teabags. He gets Sherlock's favourite brand of breakfast tea without thinking.

That afternoon, at about four o'clock, there is a buzz at his door, which indicates that someone wants to get into the building. John shuffles over to the intercom and holds down the answer button.

"Who is it?"

"Delivery," comes the response.

"But I haven't ordered anything," John says, confused.

"Are you John Watson?"

"Yes," John answers. "Fine, come up. I'm on the third floor."

John buzzes the man up, pondering what he could have ordered and forgotten about. He waits for a few minutes by the door, nervous about the interaction he's about to face. He hasn't talked to anyone since the phone call, and he isn't sure he can face it at the moment.

Three short, sharp knocks rap on the door. John swallows his fear and opens it, ready to sign the parcel off and close the door to the outside world for a little while longer. But it isn't the postman, or even a parcel courier.

Standing nervously outside is Sherlock Holmes.

John stands at the doorway for a few seconds, unable to move; unable to think; unable to talk.

"I believe it is customary for you to invite me inside," Sherlock points out. He is wearing a crisp white shirt – still too tight for him, John notes, not that he is complaining – and jeans. John has never seen Sherlock wear anything casual in the time he had known him, except for pyjamas (or just a sheet).

John shakes himself out of his stupor and takes a step back.

"Thank y –" Before Sherlock can finish, he is interrupted by John's fist in his face. "Ow," Sherlock says, gingerly massaging his cheek. "I deserved that –"

But Sherlock is cut off again, this time not by John's fist. This time John's lips are crashing into Sherlock's and he's dragging him into the flat. Sherlock kicks the door shut behind him and follows John into the bedroom, leaving various items of clothing on the floor as he goes.

Hours later, when they have finally had enough of each other's bodies, Sherlock holds John in a tight embrace.

"I followed you, sometimes," Sherlock tells him. "Around London."

"I know, I saw you. I just thought I was going mad."

"Maybe you were," Sherlock jokes, smirking slightly.

"Shut up."

"I will never leave you, John, never again."

"I know," John replies.

* * *

A/N: well, that was... interesting. No actual sex scenes, but only because I cannot write sex well. Maybe I need more experience, I don't know. Thanks for reading. If you liked it, please review! If you didn't, please review! If you don't know what you're doing on this page, please review!

If you've read my WIP 'Eye of the Storm', chapter eighteen is being beta'd and should be up soon. It's a long(ish) one!


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